Category: Jobs

(Editor Note: Insight Bytes focus on key economic issues and solutions for all of us, on Thursdays we spotlight in more depth Solutions to issues we have identified. Fridays we focus on how to build the Common Good. Please right click on images to see them larger in a separate tab.)

Photo: simplyhelp.org

Companies like CVS, Tesla, Electric Boat and others are working with local high schools and community colleges to train young workers with job skills that translate into good paying jobs. Direct connections between big corporations and local high schools are taking off. Volkswagen is helping schools in Tennessee modernize their engineering programs; Tesla is partnering with Nevada schools on an advanced manufacturing curriculum; and fisheries in Louisiana have created courses for students to train for jobs in “sustainability.”

There are 3.6 million high school students enrolled in career education programs that provide immediate skills to fill job openings in career fields where there is high demand.

Of interest are programs that provide good paying jobs in industries with careers with a future growing into more responsibility and management. Solar training programs sponsored by the federal government in 2009 worked with 400 local community colleges to try and meet the demand to fill 75,000 solar industry jobs by 2020. Over 30,000 students attended sponsored community college programs funded by the Department of Energy. Funding for the program ended in several years ago however a new program has been implemented called the Solar Training Network. The Solar Training Network supported by a foundation brings together job seekers, trainers and employers in the industry to fill job demands.

In July the GOP Administration announced a $150 million apprenticeship program to help fill 4 million jobs that are in the apprentice sector for candidates without college degrees, women, ex-offenders and workers of color. We applauded the program in a post then, but noted that a 40 % cut was included previously in the 2019 budget to a similar program in the Department of Labor – so staying power is a concern.

We are excited to see all these job training programs begin to get the visibility and funding to move ahead. Though from our perspective with millions left out of the economic mainstream and with millions of jobs to be filled a massive jobs set of programs needs to be carefully designed and funded in the billions of dollars to even begin to come close to meeting the need and having an economic impact.

Washington Attorney General, Bob Ferguson negotiated with seven major fast food franchises including; McDonalds, Arby’s, Carl’s Jr., and Jimmy Johns to delete franchise agreements with parent companies which include a no poach clause. The no poach clause provided a way for individual franchisee’s to keep managers from other same brand franchisees from hiring their workers. Two Princeton professors, Krueger and Ashenfelter published a study last year that estimated that no poach clauses affected about 70,000 individual restaurants in the U.S. or about 25 % of all fast food outlets. The professors noted that the clauses were primarily to keep turnover down, limit competition and job mobility with other same brand franchises. As a result workers had limited options to negotiate higher wages, work schedules or conditions.

Turnover in the fast food industry ranges from 60 – 70% in up-scale dining restaurants to over 120 % in fast food franchises. Franchisees are faced with constant pressure to raise wages in a low wage industry but face tight profit margins of 3 %:

Source: The Heritage Foundation – 9/4/14

With only 3 % margin to work with it is difficult for a franchise owner to raise wages. Workers also mention in surveys the need to have more scheduled hours with more notice on the hours they work. With the no poach clauses gone from contracts workers can move to a same brand restaurant and negotiate for better hours and schedules.

We are pleased to see Attorney General Ferguson successfully negotiate with major fast food chains to delete the no poach clause to give workers more negotiating power and flexibility in their job situations. It seems to us that major chains should have figured out that at least keeping the worker in the same chain was a plus, and the deleting the clause may force owners to treat workers better in order to reduce turnover. Better managed franchises would rise to the top and have lower turnover rates. Now on to raising low wages, increasing wages to a livable level is a complex issue that will require all involved; the owners, corporate franchise executives and workers to come up with a plan that will give workers the wages they deserve.

The Administration has announced a new job training and apprenticeship program focused on many hard to fill positions in manufacturing. The President signed an order to create a Council for the American Worker instructing the secretaries of commerce and labor to coordinate existing federal programs and focus on new apprenticeship programs for job seekers without college degrees and older workers. Labor Secretary, R. Alexander Acosta noted prior to the announcement that in June 2017 the administration had allocated $150 million in funding to strengthen apprenticeship programs.

Officials from various job development interested groups including unions, corporations, and trade association officials signed a ‘Pledge to America’s Workers’ committing to the creation of more career opportunities. Many of the leaders had made previous commitments, though Fed Express announced a new pledge of 512,000 workforce development slots with tuition assistance provided.

While, ‘dual careers’ have been a staple part of German and European education programs in the U.S. the ‘college for all’ mantra has taken its effect discouraging apprentice program candidates. However, many European firms like Zurich Insurance have applied their experience with apprenticeship programs to their U.S. subsidiaries to fill positions and have shared their experience with U.S. based firms like Accenture and Walgreens. Apprenticeships are 4.0% of the workforce in Germany while in the U.S. the total is about 500,000 in skilled trades like plumbing, electrical or metal work, just a small fraction of the U.S. workforce.

Source: The Labor Department, The Wall Street Journal – 2016

American employers are struggling with filling many positions in manufacturing that require special skills but not at the level of a college degree. We expect that as more co-automation jobs are created apprenticeship programs will become the norm to accelerate the number of qualified workers and retrain those workers who lost jobs from automation.

We are pleased to see the GOP Administration move ahead with executing on its pledge to increase the number of apprenticeship training programs and enlist all interested stakeholders in the process. However, this Administration has also announced budget cuts of 40 % to a Department of Labor Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, so making the program work and develop momentum seems challenging given the mixed signals. We see apprenticeship programs as crucial to expending jobs opportunities for the working class when they are combined with good salaries, benefits and continued training. Education is a bedrock institution to build a thriving society for all not just the wealthy.

Women often face job flexibility issues in managing their job. Time to be a caregiver, take care of children, or just needing to take care of kids when they get sick and can’t be in daycare. Werk co-founder, Anna Auerbach found in the workplace there was just not enough jobs that offered flexible hours, location or time agility to put women on an executive track. Werk offers products to help companies change their thinking about full time W-2 jobs but with some unique flexible characteristics.

We have seen the need for more women executives starting new businesses, in venture capital, angel funding and mature companies. It has been difficult to bring more women into the job market due to the fact their needs for jobs with greater flexibility have not been met by standard HR job definition practices. It is time these practices change to hire more women into management roles and assist men that may have caregiver or family needs.

(Editor Note: Insight Bytes focus on key economic issues and solutions for all of us, on Thursdays we spotlight in more depth Solutions to issues we have identified. Fridays we focus on how to build the Common Good. Please right click on images to see them larger in a separate tab.)

Photo: USA Today

The US Forest Services has kicked off a new program to reclaim urban lumber from abandoned homes by using workers from non-profits who had criminal records. The innovative program attacks two major problems in urban centers like Baltimore, where 70 % of criminal offenders are returned to prison within 3 years, and there are over 16,000 abandoned structures in the city. Quite often the abandoned structures are hives of prostitution, drugs and criminal activity.

Morgan Grove, Urban Wood Project leader, says “It’s about air quality and water quality. It’s also about reducing crime and helping people move forward”. She continued by declaring, “At its core, it’s really still maintaining the mission of revitalizing that the Forest Service has had since the agency was started in the early 1900s.”

The following table outlines the linked issues of high crime, abandoned buildings, high prison rates and the health of communities:

It is interesting to note the issues Baltimore city officials face in reclaiming their communities to return them to being healthy places to live, environmentally, and to redeem the people in the community to a productive life. We see many of these same issues in the rural regions of our country, that have been left behind by losing jobs to other offshore sites, reduced education opportunities, poor health, drugs and slow Internet infrastructure.

As a country we are missing the opportunity to rebuild lives, the environment and the economy unless we support innovative programs like the Urban Wood Project.